The observatory upgrade proceeds, but the outside temperature has delayed cutting new floor panels. The current plan is to try again over the next couple of days. If the conditions don’t improve I will restore the previous floor/wiring configuration to bring the PTO back online as soon as possible and watch for the next favorable opportunity to resume the floor task. I am anxious to observe the shadow of minor planet (1424) Sundmania as it passes across the panhandle on the 12th of January.

In the meantime I am processing a backlog of imagery.

This image was taken on the 14th of December. NGC 2266 is a compact open cluster discovered by William Herschel in 1785 in the constellation of Gemini. It is relatively old for an open cluster and has an estimated age of 1 billion years. The cluster’s distance has been estimated as 2.6 kpc (8485 ly).